


On the Off-Season, At the Barre

by C-chan (1001paperboxes)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Ballet, Gen, Mentioned Otabek Altin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27290869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001paperboxes/pseuds/C-chan
Summary: Growth spurts were always annoying, but Yuri could always recenter himself at the barre.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	On the Off-Season, At the Barre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Soulstoned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulstoned/gifts).



The barre was grounding. The barre was equalizing. Perhaps, for Otabek, it was a struggle, the classical forms not suiting his stiffer frame, but for Yuri, it was life.

There were few better ways to get in touch with his body than at the barre. It gave him an anchor, a point of reference. And even as he wanted to scowl at how much the referentials had changed as his body grew and matured, repeating the basics was a good way to get his mind focused, to refind and relearn his balance.

Feet in first. Transition to second. Plié. Arabesque.

The muscle memory still worked, though Lilia would be making disgruntled noises at his form if she were in earshot. Adjusting it was taking time, learning the adjustments that needed to be made. This was how to extend his legs, now. This was the right angle for his arms. This was how far to bend to achieve the effect he was after.

Jumps were the worst. He'd never been so prone to falling, and it was ruining his want to get on the ice at all some days. Yakov had forbidden him from practicing them after he'd sprained an ankle for the second time in June, but he was too stubborn to give up entirely, still working a few in most days when Yakov wasn't looking.

(Victor had done the same thing, he said. Yakov probably had as well, back in his day.)

But even basic skating was more frustrating now than it had any right to be; his body refusing to move in the way it was meant to. Everything, from controlling his speed, to how to turn had to be relearned, retaught so that his body could keep up with its current size and shape. And soon enough, that, too, would be obsolete as his body continued its tenuous trip through puberty. 

He wasn't going to become as stereotypically handsome as Victor, and that brought some relief. No, he would remain a bit more of the fey physique that had come to define him over his career to date; tall and lithe and thin, advancing from Puck to Oberon as his body took on a more masculine edge. And his skating would have to grow and change with it, be expected to become more manly; involve more athletics.

But he wasn't built for that. Not really. His home was in ballet, just as much as Otabek's never was. And so, he'd return to the barre time and time again. To take stock, to relearn.

And then, he would take the world by storm, and show the judges just what a fairy king could accomplish on the ice


End file.
